Mayhem in the mailroom

A ROW between An Post and its workers "will bring the national postal service to its knees", a union leader warned last night.

The company has taken 262 workers off the payroll, with more suspensions likely in the days ahead, in a bitter dispute over new work practices and national pay agreements.

Hundreds of thousands of customers have been advised not to post mail "until further notice" in Dublin or parts of Louth, Meath, Wicklow and Galway.

International mail is also affected and An Post warned customers not to post to foreign destinations.

An Post, facing losses of over €30 million this year, accused the Communication Workers Union (CWU) of behaving in a cynical fashion by instructing workers not to carry out normal work duties.

However, the union's national officer, Sean McDonagh, said no agreement had been reached on new work practices although staff had agreed to engage in training and testing new automated systems for the past 12 months. The dispute also centres on An Post's failure to implement pay rises due in February and November 2003.

"An Post appears to be battening down the hatches on this dispute which will bring the postal service to its knees and that's no exaggeration," warned Mr McDonagh.

He said suspended workers included staff who had not been trained for a new automated system.

Government opposition demanded swift independent arbitration, while furious business leaders warned of crippling losses for small businesses, heavily-dependent on a daily mail service.

"Small businesses depend exclusively on the postal system to sustain a cash flow of cheques and other transactions," said Pat Delaney, director of the Small Firms Association. "Any impact on the service sharply affects our sector."

Declan Martin, of Dublin Chamber of Commerce, said there was a serious risk of some city commercial concerns being forced out of business.

The suspensions started at the Dublin Mail Centre early on Saturday and continued yesterday at the Clondalkin mail office, which has nearly 900 staff.

Industrial action is also continuing at Bray, Greystones, Wicklow town, Carrickmacross, Castleblaney, Drogheda, Dundalk, Kells, Navan and Tuam.

Communications Minister Dermot Ahern did not comment on the dispute but Fine Gael spokesman on communications Simon Coveney said it was extraordinary An Post was advising the public not to use its service at a time when the troubled company needed to maximise business.

"It's time the management and unions reflected on the fact they have a responsibility to the consumer to provide an efficient and modern postal service," said Mr Coveney.

"It's unacceptable that the postal service in the capital city can be brought to a halt. Both parties need to urgently sit down and thrash out their differences or move quickly for independent arbitration."

The CWU said workers had voted by a majority of six-to-one for industrial action but it was deferred to give An Post an opportunity to resume negotiations, which broke down last December.

"It's the company that's bringing the postal service to a collapse," said Mr McDonagh. "An Post management is trying to blame the workers and the union for its own in competency."

An Post insisted the union escalated the dispute. The company said it was left with no option but to suspend staff when they refused to carry out normal work that has been part of their designated duties for over 12 months.

"The action by the CWU was in breach of the national pay agreement and was designed to pressurise the company to submit to their demands by disrupting mail services, particularly in the Dublin area," said an An Post spokesperson.

An Post is providing information on the disruption on 1850 57 58 59 or at www.anpost.ie.

Failure to deliver:

October: An Post announces it will ditch its TV licence service to cut jobs and save on debt collection costs as part of plan to offload non-core services.

November: Chief executive Donal Curtin is warned the Oireachtas Communications Committee wants an explanation as to why he is forecasting €47m losses.

December: Communications Regulator finds An Post's next-day delivery rates fall far below target. Company announces plans for price rise. Talks with Communications Workers Union (CWU) on 3% national wage increase break down.

January: Mr Curtin tells Oireachtas committee the company is using bank overdrafts and proceeds of property sales to pay wages; it can not pay the 3% wage deal, is facing losses of €30m this year and needs 1,350 redundancies to survive.

February: Public asked not to post mail to Tuam after stoppage leads to backlog. Other disputes cause delivery delays in Galway and Cork. Disputes centre on health and safety issues, overtime restrictions and changes in work practices.

March: CWU votes for nationwide industrial action after refusing to agree to redundancies for one-third of letter post staff and other cuts in return for 3% pay increase. Action postponed for talks to take place. Company suspends over 260 employees in Dublin who refuse orders to work under changed conditions. An Post tells customers in Dublin city and county and parts of counties Wicklow, Monaghan, Louth, Meath and Galway not to post from these locations.